Pathfinder 2E The starknife hurts my brain

[GuardianLurker]

Have you ever seen a picture of a mambele? That's actually a throwing weapon.

 

[Incenjucar]

Humans have come up with much stranger weapons, like the urumi.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Humans have come up with much stranger weapons, like the urumi.

and i thought whips were horrifically impractical as a combat weapon. i wouldn't even wanna be in the same BUILDING as one of those things, let alone swing it around.

it'd make a really cool advanced weapon, though.

EDIT: and apparently there are people in india even TODAY who use it for SELF DEFENSE! i call those folks much braver then i.

 

[pawsplay]

Have you ever seen a picture of a mambele? That's actually a throwing weapon.

And it throws! I've actually held a couple of African throwing knives.

Humans have come up with much stranger weapons, like the urumi.

Stranger than what? The urumi is a functional weapon, so it's not stranger than a starknife.

 

[Staffan]

Most likely cause of your problem is artist ignorance, I think. Rotate the handle so its inline with one pair of blades (instead of offset), and most of your problem would disappear I think.

You'd still have one blade along your arm, which doesn't seem very practical. You'd also still be holding your hand in a very awkward position, "dipping" it into the central circle to grip the handle.

The most reasonable thing would be to remove one of the blades and have the handle in line with the remaining pair – essentially, making it into a punch dagger with two more blades sticking out from the sides. Something like this: þ– . That, or keep the off-set handle and open it up toward the wielder, making it more like a rising sun than a star. Or maybe make the ring bigger and space the blades out more, so you can grip it along the actual ring. This would have the advantage of maintaining the look of a star, which lore-wise is kind of important as Desna is the goddess of stars.

 

[pawsplay]

Probably the coolest and most star-like thing, I think, would be to make it a punching dagger with one long blade, and a smaller blade a each side.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Have you ever seen a picture of a mambele? That's actually a throwing weapon.

IIRC those were in the weapons list as "African throwing knives" in 1st edition Tunnels & Trolls, and pretty darned effective too. That game was chock full of weapons that didn't appear in D&D for ages, which kind of fits with the general narrative of it being written as a "we can do better" response to OD&D.

 

[Staffan]

IIRC those were in the weapons list as "African throwing knives" in 1st edition Tunnels & Trolls, and pretty darned effective too. That game was chock full of weapons that didn't appear in D&D for ages, which kind of fits with the general narrative of it being written as a "we can do better" response to OD&D.

I remember looking at the weapon lists in 2e's Combat & Tactics and seeing "knife, throwing" doing something like 2d4 damage (I don't recall the exact number, but it was significantly higher than a dagger), and only when looking at the actual description of the weapon realizing they were referring to one of those African weapons.

And every time someone else was using my book to make a character and saw the weapon in the list, I'd have to explain it to them.

 

[Cergorach]

Battle axes, for example, historically had smaller heads and pretty much never double sided, unlike what much of RPG art would like you to believe.

Yeah, I suddenly remember using a small hand axe during scouts in the wrong way and it bounced back from the small tree almost in my face. I suddenly imagine a double sided axe blade bouncing back into my face... Ugh!

Same thing with a war hammer looking like a big Thor's hammer instead of the pick and small hammerhead it was (was more of a plate can opener)...

 

[pawsplay]

The original description of Thor's hammer was that it had an unusually short handle. I've tended to assume that's a Norse dick joke.